Newly Discovered Young Galaxy Creates 4,000 Stars Per Year 81
Astronomers using NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope have found a galaxy producing an average of up to 4,000 stars per year. They contrast this with the Milky Way, which only produces an average of 10 each year. Nicknamed "Baby Boom," it is a young starburst galaxy, and its stellar birth rate conflicts with a commonly accepted model for the growth of a galaxy. Quoting:
"'The question now is whether the majority of the very most massive galaxies form very early in the universe like the Baby Boom galaxy, or whether this is an exceptional case. Answering this question will help us determine to what degree the Hierarchical Model of galaxy formation still holds true,' [said Peter Capak of NASA's Spitzer Science Center] 'The incredible star-formation activity we have observed suggests that we may be witnessing, for the first time, the formation of one of the most massive elliptical galaxies in the universe,' said co-author Nick Scoville of Caltech, the principal investigator of the Cosmic Evolution Survey,
Actually RTFAed, and ... (Score:5, Informative)
Also, to be more specific, this Galaxy was creating 4,000 stars per year 12.3 Billion years ago, when the universe was only 1.3 Billion years old. Also, they don't know the number to be 4,000 stars: it's in the range of 1,000 to 4,000 stars per year, based on how bright it is.
Re:Familiar Model? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:For what value of 'year'? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, clocks "run" faster in gravitational wells. For proof, just think of the equivalence principle [slashdot.org], and clocks as sources of periodic light, or at least just think of light as a series of wavefronts (helps in understanding gravitational redshift too!). A good source on this is "Gravity: An Introduction to Einstein's General Relativity" by James Hartle.
It is also important to remember the principle of proper time [wikipedia.org] when considering the formation of these stars. Ignoring special relativity concerns for a second, clocks only run at relative different rates if they are at different gravitational potentials (the only way to measure gravitational potential anyway). So if the entire early universe were all at nearly the same gravitational potential, then all matter would be experiencing the same "proper" time, and things such as star formation rates would still be comparable; so this case examined here is still, probably, exceptional.
For further reading and a great intro to the formation of the universe and gravity and such, check out the book I mentioned above and "Introduction to Cosmology" by Barbara Ryden. I am not an expert-yet (grad school in a bit!)- but the cosmo. book is a great read for anyone interested and the gravity book is great for anyone with a little background in general and special relativity and some advanced linear algebra. Hope this helps!
Re:For what value of 'year'? (Score:3, Informative)
In physical cosmology, cosmic inflation [wikipedia.org] is the idea that the nascent universe passed through a phase of exponential expansion that was driven by a negative-pressure vacuum energy density.
Also read Wikipedia's article on the Big Bang [wikipedia.org], since it's directly related. Both pages above are easy to read for amateurs with no serious physics background.